Bookplate for John Fothergill

After studying at the University of London's Slade School of Art Carrington became associated with the Bloomsbury Group. In 1917 she formed a devoted platonic partnership with Lytton Strachey, a bond that survived affairs on both sides and Carrington's marriage to Ralph Partridge. Since the artist exhibited rarely, her work was appreciated in her lifetime mostly by friends. Wider attention came late in the 20th century as books and exhibitions revealed her exquisite pastoral landscapes and striking portraits to a wider audience. The artist also produced about a dozen small woodcuts. This book plate may depict Icarus mourning his fall after flying too close to the sun. Both imagery and style demonstrate admiration for English popular print tradition and recall William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" and late woodcuts devoted to Virgil's "Georgics."